Lately I've been loving...

Lately I've been loving unique self portraits. They've been inspiring me to re-do my mini self portrait project from last year. I started that one and then ended that one pretty quickly and the more I see beautiful self portraits the more I want to try and recreate them.

All the best ones seem to scream their emotions out loud, and seem so free. Plus I have got to get me some of those coloured tights!!


Any tips on keeping up the motivation and dedicating the time!?


Abiento x

Art Inspiration

Found via A Cup of Jo, this clever look at ancient art created by Anna Utopia Giordano for her Venus project, highlights our current societies expectancy for a slim and perfectly proportioned female figure.

The incredible different between the paintings highlights the proportional differences and stupidly idealistic shapes. The Ancient Greeks are known for having created art that idealized humans and the human form, and yet even they did not expect size 8 women; they portrayed curvaceous women with realistically sized and shaped breasts and thighs. 

I think that making a statement with art, like this, is such a creative way of expressing a point and puts it dramatically into contrast with the reality. What do you think? Thanks for sharing Jo! (she has such a great knack for finding these things!)

Abiento x

Art Inspiration

Whoever thinks that art has to be a painting, or similar, is silly. I think that if you chuck in a bit of creativity to anything in life, you can pretty much make it art. (Obviously there is more to it than that but bear with me here) Anyway Swedish Artist Carl Kleiner has made 'art' out of Ikea products! Love it!

Found here

Abiento x

Art Inspiration: Watercolours

There is something about water-color that is just so dreamy. I've been told to experiment with watercolor for my project and I have to say I've been avoiding it. I don't like paint, never has and so I'm resisting it- even though I feel that watercolor may be different for me... Anyway here is a small collection of beautiful watercolor pieces that I've been staring at, willing myself to be this good. Sadly they have been sat in my inspiration folder for so long that I have no idea who did them or where I found them. If you know- let me know!

Abiento x

Illustration

Just thinking and brainstorming in preparation for my illustration workshop next week, and quite appropriately this popped up on my blogger feed-

Thanks Miss Moss for being so timely!

Sketchy, but colourful, like fashion illustrations.

(French Women by Isaac Bonan)

Particularly love the skin tones- blues and purples all merging together with the hazy white background :)

(Lizz Conley)

Such great, popping colours! Very simplistic but delicate

(Les confitures bonne maman by Laura Manfre) 

Delicate, rustic, careful language. Sweet and deliberately simplistic.

(Merci by Emma Block)

Great use of darker colours, reminiscent of print work. Love the yellow lines of interest leading to the subtler sky.

(Tatsuro Kiuchi)

Merged and hidden, subtle and beautiful. Less is more. Blurry and hazy, yet clear as to what is being expressed. 

(Cotton Candy by Mick Allister)

Delicate, light colours of pencil sketching. Layers of translucent. Similar to a photo from fashion week, but so much more intimate as a sketch.

(Valentino 2012 beauty by Mademolina)

Just love the concept of this to be honest. Tugging on her jumper to reveal her tattoo. Tugging at her heart sleeve!

(Denise Nestor)

Abiento x

Too Cool for School

How cool are these!? Thanks to My Modern Metropolis for sharing :).

Well done Jason Sho!

A bit more inspiration

So in my life at the moment, my biggest annoyance is my finger. I pulled out a hang-nail, and now it is infected, swollen and HURTS. Man does it hurt.

However one of my greatest pleasures this weekend was to re-read parts of this lovely cookbook by Sophie Dahl.

image source

One our projects for this week involved finding a passage from one of our favourite books. As my collection of books has been in storage for a couple of years, I have a very limited supply of books that have been bought or given as gifts in that time. One of these is a much lusted after recipe book, full of Sophie's memoirs of her relationship with food.

I can honestly say that it touches me. I received it at Christmas last year, and spent the whole day lying in bed reading it. It was perfect, heart warming and inspires me to eat better, cook better and live better.

Have you read it? Or found a recipe book just as inspiring? Now on my wish list is her follow-up book... :)

Abiento x

In light of

In light of these posts last week, have a read of what this guy wrote about being an artist......

Abiento x

Making Cake (and other things)

When you can make baking look so good, why would you want to do anything else?

beet cake from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

Abiento x

P.S. I find that work like this often makes me jealous, and wish that I was as creative or ingenious as the creator. But it also pushes me to take my own work further. I just need to find some more energy and time to put into it so I can achieve the results.

Aerial Photos

Why is it that everything looks so different from above?

If you take a picture from the sky it can look so dramatic....

almost like art. Or it can make us humans look little toy sets....

It still boggles me a little bit.

Found here

Abiento x